Ending the Game - Part One: The Game
by Cobalt MacGregor
Summary: Challenge fic; if Lupin was dependent on Snape, who apparently has been stringing Lupin along in a long-winded game for two years. Snape finally decides, in their seventh year at Hogwarts, to end the game.


Standard Disclaimer:  
  
JK Rowling is a wonderful woman, despite being a Classics Major, and owns and lives off and could live off for 665 years from her creation of the two major characters and the settings in this story. I, on the other hand, am a poor archaeology student. This is possibly even parody. Do not sue me. I have very little to lose. You have very little to gain. End of Story.  
  
Author's Note: On 12 Jan 2002, Libertine, on the Veelas Inc. yahoo groups list, posted a challenge for fic, possibly in jest: stoner!Remus and dealer!Severus. I and at least one other person managed to write a fic. ~ Cobalt MacGregor  
  
Rating: probably falls around R. Nothing graphic, one real swear, drug use present and implied, slash (SS/RL) implied. Hey, Kids! Don't Read This!  
  
ENDING THE GAME  
  
(part one: the game)  
  
"We are the dealers, We'll give you everything you need." - AC/DC 'For Those About to Rock'.  
  
"Remus?" He didn't turn as James called after him. "Where are you going?"  
  
"At this time of night," Sirius continued, his voice playful and mocking. "Without us?" His dense form appeared suddenly in front of the one trying to leave.  
  
"Walk," he growled, frozen with his hand on the doorknob. "Been feeling tense." He looked tired and angry, even towards Sirius and James. He opened the door of the dormitory slowly.  
  
"You could try sleeping," James suggested, eyeing the pale seventh- year warily. "Looks to me like you've forgotten about that recently." Remus shut the door quietly behind him.  
  
"I'm out."  
  
"You're out of what?"  
  
"What you want. Packet of Shimmer, if I'm correct."  
  
"How do you know?"  
  
"It's been the same thing for two years now." Severus sighed. "I'm out until you can start paying me with something better than cigarettes."  
  
Twice a week this was his corner of the common room, just like it had been since he was a fifth-year. Friday nights had always been good for business. Until now, this one had been no exception. Now his thin fingers tapped a slow and morbid rhythm on the dark wood of the side table.  
  
"Coursework, then. Transfiguration. You know I've got that..." Severus held up his hand, silencing the voice of the hunched figure in front of him.  
  
"I'm ashamed you're even offering, Lupin. I will not ever need help from a Gryffindor, werewolf or not, for my Transfiguration homework. Your very suggestion is putting me out of a mood to be dealing with you." He shifted his gaze from the unkempt, sandy hair of the man in front of him to a lamp which was flickering unsteadily. It was a useful distraction, as it made Remus worried.  
  
"What can I get for you?"  
  
The best part, Severus reflected, was watching Lupin sweat. People were so much less attractive when they were addicts, but so much more so when they looked desperate. This case was a beautiful combination of both. Pale blue eyes stared at him. He knew the other's veins were starting to collapse; if he wanted to keep up this game he'd have to start Lupin on some other sorts of drugs soon. But why keep the game going on forever? There was barely more than a semester left before he would be rid of those Gryffindors for good. Severus looked down at the tin on the table to his side and at the cigarettes on the table between them. "I don't even know why I let you start paying me like that anyway. I don't even smoke." He knew why, but the lie tasted sweet on his tongue.  
  
"Anything," Remus gasped. Severus allowed himself a thin smile.  
  
"Are you sure you want to say that, Lupin?"  
  
Remus shuddered despite the pain that was wracking his blood. Snape's voice echoed like black velvet in his ears. Part of his mind, which was barely conscious, warned him, screaming feebly that this was a mistake, that getting involved with Snape at all was a mistake. The louder and simpler part, however, watched Snape's skeletal hands creep toward a tin on the distant table. That part said, "Yes."  
  
"Come with me." He swept the tin somewhere among his robes and stood.  
  
"How much will this count for?" Remus eyed the tablet, rolling it over in the palm of his hand.  
  
"That depends on the effects of this latest formulation. If nothing happens, this trial doesn't count and we act as if nothing has ever happened here. If, on the other hand, the effects are," he paused, inspecting his fingernails and avoiding Remus' inquiring look, "substantial, then I'll count it as a down payment and you'll get your Shimmer as soon as the effects wear off."  
  
Remus shivered. He didn't like being in the dungeons during the day, when he knew where he was, with other people around. Right now, alone, having been led through labyrinthine corridors by Snape, and needing a fix badly, the dungeons were far worse than 'unpleasant'.  
  
"What's it called?" It was pale green, about the size of a Sickle but thicker. It felt sandy; he was always more aware of how things felt when he was on Shimmer, and it was beginning to seep into everyday life. Noticing things, usually things that didn't matter. Not noticing, perhaps, the important things.  
  
"I thought you didn't care." Remus' hand was closing around the tablet despite what he had said, the rough cut of his bangs falling into his eyes as his head bowed. "I don't have a name for it yet. I suppose it depends on what it does to you."  
  
There's nothing to lose, Remus reflected. He dry-swallowed the tablet, and the walls of the disused dungeon melted away.  
  
Severus knew exactly what the drug was *supposed* to do. He watched, eyes half-closed and hidden beneath a veil of black hair, as Remus coughed and leaned against the wall. All there was to do now was wait. Just a few minutes.  
  
Once the darkness receded, Remus was confused suddenly. His last memories were of being led into the dungeons by Snape, but it seemed to him that he was somewhere far more pleasant, and vague, and that the man standing a few feet away was...vague and pleasant.  
  
"How are you feeling, Remus?" The voice sounded like silk; he wondered if he could find the source.  
  
Remus was looking at him in a curiously happy way. To his own knowledge, Severus knew few people who were pleased to see him, and Lupin had probably only ever thought of him as a necessary evil. Not as someone who had, for instance, two years ago started to look unexpectedly tasty, to the point where one might almost die in pursuit...Severus was unhappy with the way his thoughts were turning back to that event, and felt a twinge of guilt at drugging someone, even Remus, with what he had.  
  
As Remus started pawing gently at his throat, however, the guilt faded.  
  
"What the hell happened to you last night? Remus blinked as James and Sirius peered at him from above. James continued. "We found you dumped in the Common Room sometime before three. Did something happen?"  
  
Sirius was grinning. "Looks like *someone* happened," he said, pointing at the marks on Remus' neck. "Who was it?"  
  
Uncertain memories trickled back to him as he stared up at the two faces, the one concerned and the other mocking. He sat up suddenly, so that the blood rushed to his head; unheeding it he ran to a mirror.  
  
'It has to be a rash,' he thought desperately. 'Please let it be a rash Sev...Snape...that *pill* gave me.'  
  
"Fuck," Remus muttered, remembering a few more details. The mirror 'tsk'ed.  
  
Upon a quick inspection in the shower, he found himself covered with scratches and more worrying bites. He was horrified to find he could remember receiving most of them. He turned the water up until it almost scalded his skin, but it didn't help.  
  
"What the hell did you do to me?" He cornered Snape as he was walking out of the Great Hall. The urge to slap the faint smile from the Slytherin's face was overwhelming.  
  
"I have something for you." Severus enjoyed the look of anger and disgust that washed over Remus' face for a moment while he searched the inside pockets of his cloak. He found the packet and passed it to the haggard, scarred Lupin. It felt heavier than the packets he usually bought.  
  
"We're even now," Severus whispered. He swept away, unmindful of the look of terror that now fixed itself on Remus' face. 


End file.
